Wednesday, December 1, 2010

First train!

I ran my first train on the new layout last night :)

If you come from another layout, it's about as unexciting as you can get, but it's the first time I've had a layout working well enough to run a train any distance at all since July 2002, so I'm pretty excited.

The train was simply this Life-Like / Mantua 2-6-6-2T in Canadian Forest Products colours, along with 5 assorted cars from the cheap table at recent train shows.  This locomotive is one of two DC locos I have, since I don't yet have my DCC system (I'm planning on getting an NCE PowerCab next month). In fact, I don't even have a proper DC power pack; I used an old industrial beast of a power supply (0-20VDC, 20A capacity) but it worked well enough to run the train. Simply swap the wires to reverse :)

I'm please to report no derailments or other track issues throughout the entire 48-foot (each way) run; forwards uphill and backwards downhill. No feeders run yet, just a pair of alligator clips at the end of the first rails and worked fine through 16 sections of flextrack (soldered joints on curves, which is 95% of the main line). This is the longest run between turnouts (which won't be soldered to adjacent track), excepting the helix.